Financial storm in Lviv: where did Andriy Sadovyi’s millions go?

Lviv is at the epicenter of a financial scandal that threatens to turn into a real storm for Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.
The focus is on the 20 million hryvnias from the city budget that Mayor Sadovyi personally “sent to the Odesa Naval Academy.”

Natalia Shelestak, the head of the budget committee of the Lviv City Council, is sounding the alarm.
She claims that she has not yet received a single financial report on the use of these funds, which were supposed to be used to purchase sails for the Druzhba frigate.

This story raises a number of pressing questions:

1. Does the Odesa Naval Academy belong to the municipal property of Lviv?
2. Was this decision agreed upon with the parliamentary corps and the budget committee?
3. Does sailing training meet the current needs of the Navy?
4. Did the law enforcement agencies check this financial decision?

As of September 2024, there are no answers to these questions.
Natalia Shelestak said that the budget commission of the Lviv City Council rejected Odesa’s request, but Andriy Sadovyi, contrary to the regulations, still single-handedly allocated 20 million hryvnias of Lviv taxes to the Maritime Academy.
The time will come when we will learn about the use of these Lviv funds.
And if we take into account that the Lviv mayor and the Maritime Academy boldly and in solidarity ignore the deputy requests of the Lviv City Council, it is likely that Andriy Sadovyi will sit in the dock alone.
Provided that Lviv taxes are not squandered on military appointments.
Although the question of why Andriy Sadovyi was so enthusiastic about buying sails for Odesa, which is budgetarily richer than Lviv, still needs to be answered.

Given the fact that the mayor did not show the deputies a letter of appeal from the Maritime Academy in December 2023, a number of deductive assumptions arise:

• Andriy Sadovyi concealed his Odesa accomplices from the Lviv public;
• Andriy Sadovyi and his Odesa accomplices amicably divided 20 million Lviv taxes among themselves;
• Lviv taxes were deposited in a bank in Odesa and are now benefiting from the interest accrued;
• Andriy Sadovyi used the money of Lviv residents to buy a frigate for his family’s sea voyages after the war.

Natalia Shelestak said that at the beginning of the full-scale war, Lviv deputies granted Andriy Sadovyi’s executive committee the right to spend budget funds of up to UAH 50 million with the approval of the Finance Commission only, not the City Council.
One can only imagine the mayor’s smile as he suddenly found himself in an almost uncontrollable financial clandestine situation.

At the same time, Andriy Sadovyi forbade his subordinates to attend meetings of the deputy finance committee and report on the expenditure of budget funds.
The executive committee of the mayor’s administration blatantly failed to respond to official requests from the head of the finance commission, Nadiya Shelestak, to collective requests from the commission and requests from deputies.

Only when the deputy commission supported Natalia Shelestak in her decision to seek help from the State Bureau of Investigation did Andriy Sadovyi run to the meeting of the financial commission and hand the deputies documents on the financial expenses of the Lviv administration under martial law, which had been approved by the executive committee.

This incident, which is extremely unpleasant for Andriy Sadovyi’s reputation, states that the mayor does not belong to the brave cohort of officials.
If Ivan Franko were among us, he would have told the deputies: “Hit this rock, it’s scared.”

There is a branch of economics called marketing.
So this marketing teaches us that in order to run a successful business, it is necessary to periodically rebrand, i.e. change an outdated brand.
In Lviv, the most outdated brand is Andriy Sadovyi.
Therefore, it is necessary to at least elect another deputy as the head of the Lviv City Council.

The city council has exactly 12 deputy commissions, just like the apostles.
The Commission on Legality, Deputy Activities, Freedom of Speech and Security (author – what security?) is at the very bottom of the list, in fact, “at the bottom.”
Accordingly, the voice of the head of the commission, Uliana Pak, is not heard regarding the outrages committed by the administration of Andriy Sadovyi.
Ulyana Pak also does not comment on court cases where Lviv residents are defending their constitutional rights, which are being deliberately destroyed by the Lviv administration.

For example, during one of the sessions, probably the June one, Andriy Sadovyi blatantly violated the rules of procedure, i.e., he did not allow the head of the budget committee, Natalia Shelestak, to speak to the deputies about the missing 20 million budget hryvnias.
Sadovyi announced a break.
When most of the deputies went out into the corridor, Sadovyi arbitrarily read out the resolution of the head of the budget commission, Nadiya Shelestak, distorting the content of the resolution in his favor.

I have not seen the head of the Legality Commission, Uliana Pak, raise her voice against Andriy Sadovyi in defense of the brutally violated regulations.
We have not seen Ms. Pak stand up for the truth the way Ms. Shelestak stands up for Lviv’s finances.
Instead, the head of the Legality Commission spent the summer playing with children for Taiwanese money.

If only with Lviv children.
She also devoted her parliamentary attention to children in Ivano-Frankivsk and Poltava regions.
This is, of course, a noble cause.
The future generation needs to be educated, but first you need to put your mandate as a deputy on the table, and then you can take care of all the children of Ukraine.
The lawmaker either does not have the capacity or does not have the hands to deal with the main Lviv problem, which is firmly rooted on the second floor of the City Hall.

Three MPs are involved in the parliamentary commission on legality: Uliana Pak from the Solidarity Party, Yuriy Melnyk from the Self-Help Party, and Andriy Tyahnybok from the Svoboda Party.
However, only two MPs – Pak and Melnyk – are participating in the meeting.
The video does not say where the third deputy went and does not have a caption.
All Lviv legality is decided on two.

The parliamentary commission on legality should be reformed as soon as possible and supplemented with another dozen deputies to completely neutralize possible external influences on the decisions of this important board.

Yaroslav Levkiv, for Leopolis.news